


Play for Me

by SelanPike



Category: MS Paint Adventures, Problem Sleuth (Webcomic)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-07
Updated: 2011-12-07
Packaged: 2017-10-27 01:03:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/289864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SelanPike/pseuds/SelanPike
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s played for you a few times since then, late at night when you couldn’t sleep and you begged him to play you a lullaby to drone out all the noise in your head, but that first song stuck with you. It was special.</p><p>He’s playing that song now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Play for Me

            Tonight, Sleuth has invited you to come with him to one of the Midnight Crew’s clubs. They’re doing a gig, he says, and it’s a shame you haven’t seen them play, what with your being involved with their saxophone player and all. You’re hesitant. Those places are crowded and full of noisy ne’er-do-wells and oh gosh, what if there’s a bar fight, you really don’t want to get stuck in the middle of a bar fight, and what if—

            Sleuth tells you to shut up and come on.

            You secure a table whilst Sleuth procures drinks. You’re there early, but there’s already a crowd forming. Your table is in the back, in an out-of-the-way corner. You don’t want to attract attention. You’re a detective, after all, and most of this lot are criminals. Bar fights still drift about your imagination. Sleuth walks up with some glasses and a pitcher of beer and he pours you one. You try to refuse it. You’re going to spend time with Droog soon and you’ve been avoiding letting him see you drunk. You get a little silly when you have a few drinks in you. You’re terrified of embarrassing yourself in front of him. But everyone around you is drinking, Sleuth included, and you start to feel really awkward being the only sober person in the room. Peer pressure has pushed you into many a dumb decision before, and it will surely push you into dumber ones in the future. Still, as dumb decisions go, having one drink isn’t too bad.

            Okay, make that two drinks. Sorry, three. You know what, let’s not bother counting.

            You’re, well, let’s not say drunk, let’s say you’re _thoroughly buzzed_ by the time the Crew takes the stage. You shoosh Sleuth, despite the fact that you are the only one who’s been doing any talking between the two of you for the past ten minutes, and lean forward as the Crew starts their set with a saxophone solo.

            Oh gosh, you can’t put words to the feelings you have when you hear Droog play. You’ve never seen him play with the rest of the Crew, but you’ve seen him play alone. First it was when you were investigating him. You spied on him hoping to learn of all his devious plans, but instead you caught him in the middle of writing a song. It was beautiful and heartrending and you couldn’t imagine how a cold-hearted monster like Diamonds Droog could play music like that. He’s played for you a few times since then, late at night when you couldn’t sleep and you begged him to play you a lullaby to drone out all the noise in your head, but that first song stuck with you. It was special.

            He’s playing that song now.

            He notices you and gives you a nod as he continues to make that beautiful music. You smile at him in your awkward way. Once he looks away from you to pay some attention to the rest of the audience you take a drink and try not to swoon. All those images of bar fights and angry criminals fade from your head and all you can picture is the music and all the colors and shapes the sound summons forth from your vast imagination.

            The solo ends all too soon and after that it’s all piano piano piano as Droog takes a backseat to Slick. You wish Slick wasn’t such a showoff, but at least Sleuth is having a good time. You finish off the pitcher of beer—this might be the third pitcher, or maybe the fourth—as you throw contented glances over to your dear saxophonist.

            When the show is over you stumble to your feet, made more clumsy than usual by the alcohol sloshing about in your veins, and wander over to the stage. Sleuth is behind you, and as you approach Slick accuses him of having not paid attention to the music. The two of them bicker as you smile up at Droog.

            “Did you enjoy the show?” he asks as he delicately places his saxophone in its case.

            You nod vigorously. You don’t say anything at first, because your head is full of a million things you’d like to say and you’re pretty sure most of them are stupid. He closes the instrument case and picks it up, then steps off the stage. You get the feeling like you need to say _something,_ because this pause is getting sort of awkward and also you’d like to ignore Slick’s impolite ranting a little more. So you stammer out a simple, “I—I really like that song.”

            “The first one?” he asks.

            You nod again. “I-it’s really… it’s really good.”

            “Thanks,” he says. “I wrote that one.”

            “I know,” you say. It takes a moment, but the thought that maybe you shouldn’t have said that bubbles to the surface of your brain. You blush, flustered.

            He smiles his thin, unreadable smile. You’re almost relieved when he changes the subject. “Are you drunk?”

            “N-no. No.” You look downward. “Not… not completely.”

            “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you drink,” he says, wrapping an arm around you in the stiff way that he does because he’s trying not to crease his suit jacket. “What’s the occasion, Inspector?”

            “You kidding?” Sleuth laughs as Slick pulls him into a headlock. “Pickle drinks harder than any of us!”

            You’re sure you’re blushing even harder, but then again, your face was red to begin with so maybe he won’t notice. He looks you over and you just know he’s analyzing that bit of information, going through all his mental files on you and updating them with bright red ink, “HEAVY DRINKER”. You flinch under his gaze. “W-well, I—I mean… sometimes I, uh… imbibe…”

             “You should hear him once he gets going,” Sleuth continued, pulling out of Slick’s stranglehold and swatting the short mobster away. “He’s a real motormouth like this, you can’t shut him up for anything.”

            Droog hums. You can tell he’s thinking. He motions at someone and before you know it, a bottle of bourbon is being shoved into your hands. You clutch it to your chest, not sure what to do with it.

            “Come with me,” Droog says, leading you away from the stage and toward a door marked ‘STAFF ONLY’. “We’ll have a drink and you can tell me what you think of my music.”

             He takes you through a short, cluttered hallway and into a dim lounge. It had the look of a room that once was very nicely decorated—probably Droog’s doing—but had long since been wrecked, probably by the rest of the crew. He sits you down on a couch covered in holes and half-assed patchwork, takes the bottle from your hands and pours some of the drink out into two of four glass tumblers that were sitting on the side table. They have little card suits engraved on them. They’re very nice. You get distracted ogling the detailing.

            He snaps you back to reality by asking you how you knew he wrote that song. You know he already knows the answer so you just stammer aimlessly, not really saying anything meaningful. He grills you, although most of the questions seem to serve the purpose of stroking his ego rather than having any ulterior motive. Still, your answers are short and calculated. You simply will not reveal to him what a babbling moron you are. You. Will. Not.

            But then he opens his instrument case and takes out the saxophone and oh gosh. Ohhh gosh. He’s playing and it’s a song you’ve never heard before, but it’s so beautiful. You close your eyes as you listen and you’re enveloped in sound and color and shape. They move and sway with each note and it’s just too much to bear. How can he play like that? How can someone so cold affect your emotions so easily, with only his music? Is it an extension of his manipulative nature, or is he pouring his true feelings out to you?

            The music stops and you open your eyes, blinking back the tears at the corners of your eyes. You wish he would say, “I wrote that song for you”, or something like that. He doesn’t. He sits there, saxophone in hand, looking at you. You can’t stand it. The silence eats at you and you have to fill it, so you talk. And you talk. And talk. You tell him about the shapes and the colors and you tell him about your feelings and gosh, you’re being an idiot, stop being such an idiot, why are you letting him see you like this? You shouldn’t have accepted that beer from Sleuth, or the countless other ones that came after it. Oh gosh you’re still talking, why are you doing that? You don’t even know what you’re saying anymore, but you know you need to stop. Unable to stop the flow of words by normal means, you take drastic measures. You pitch forward, pushing the saxophone aside—you want to say you did it carefully, but you are far too drunk to be careful about anything—and you shove your lips onto Droog’s. You’re in such a sorry state you can’t even kiss right, but Droog doesn’t seem to mind. He breaks away for a moment and puts the saxophone back in its case.

            “I suppose,” he says, “I’ll have to play for you more often.”

            You nod and, fearing you may let slip some more embarrassing babble, kiss him again. You try your best to keep your mouth similarly occupied for the rest of the night.


End file.
